A Life-Sized Starship Enterprise?

Share.

It almost happened -- in Vegas!

By Scott Collura

This story has been floating around for a few days now, but it's almost too difficult to talk about because of what we lost. For there was a time when mankind almost got a life-sized Starship Enterprise.

Yes, all of humanity's woes could've been wiped away if this wondrous project had gone ahead, but alas it was not to be. Gary Goddard recounts on The Goddard Group blog the project his design firm worked on in the early 1990s in an attempt to revitalize downtown Las Vegas. "It would create a new '8th Wonder of the World,'" he writes, "with an iconic monument that would take its place alongside other 'must see' monuments in the world. (You would be able to see this from the airplanes as they came for landing at the Vegas airport. It's that big.)"

Of course, visitors would be able to board the vessel. "Conceptually, it was to be a 'tour' of the ship, with all of the key rooms, chambers, decks, and corridors that we knew from the movie. There was to be the dining area for the ship's crew (where you could dine in Star Fleet comfort), and other special features. There were also one or two interesting ride elements that we were considering including a high-speed travelator that would whisk you from deck to deck. But we were really just getting into the show aspects when everything came to a head."

In other words, when the warp-drive brakes were slammed on the project. It all came down to Paramount CEO Stanley Jaffe. After five months of work, the plan was presented to him. This is how Goddard remembers the exec responding:

"You know, this is a major project. You're going to put a full-scale Enterprise up in the heart of Las Vegas. And on one hand that sounds exciting. But on another hand, it might not be a great idea for us -- for Paramount. … In the movie business, when we produce a big movie and it's a flop -- we take some bad press for a few weeks or a few months, but then it goes away. The next movie comes out and everyone forgets. But THIS -- this is different. If this doesn't work -- if this is not a success -- it's there, forever…"

And that was the end of it. But maybe it's for the best. After all, everyone knows that the Enterprise was not designed to exist within a planetary atmosphere anyway. That's why they built it on Earth but assembled it in space!